A phonology created by the interbreeding of Xavante, Rotokas and Swedish

consonants:

voiceless: /p t ts~s ʔ/
voiced: /m~b~v n~d~z~r ɲ~j/

vowels:
tense: /i: e: ɛ: ɑ: o: u: ø: y:/
lax: /ɪ ɛ a ɔ ʊ œ ʏ/

syllable structure: at least (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C), maybe more consonants can appear in a syllable.

note on vowels: in stressed syllables, the vowel is a lax one if the syllable is closed and ends in at leat two consonants, and the vowel is a tense one if the syllable is open. In closed syllable ending with a single consonant, either vowels can appear.

Also, sorry to double-post, but here's a revision of something Frislander did quite some time ago for my 26-syllable challenge:

/pʷ pʲ tʷ sʲ/
/mʷ mʲ nʷ ɲ/
/ɾʷ ʎ/
/w βʲ j/

/ɨ a/

/ɨ/ is realized as [u] after labialized consonants and [i] after palatalized consonants. Word-initial /jɨ/ and /wɨ/ are realized as [i] and [u].

Syllable structure is CVC; however, word-final unstressed /ɨ/ is deleted, creating some surface-level final CC clusters. Consonants assimilate in secondary articulation to the following consonant in a cluster, except in certain cases like compounding or prefixation.

In some varieties, further tendencies towards deleting /ɨ/ in unstressed position (e.g. perhaps immediately after the stressed syllable) may create word-internal or word-final CCC clusters. In these cases the above-described assimilation rule may be complicated.

I changed Frislander's velarization to labialization, since I like labialization (and find it easier to articulate than velarization), though the labial consonants still are more back/velarized too - I guess they really are labiovelarized. I'm still deliberating over whether to add some kind of glottal consonant, perhaps as a reflex of a past velar. But would it have a labialized-palatalized pair? Or would it have its own behavior? Or maybe I should just add a single velar /kʷ/, with its former palatalized counterpart having merged with /sʲ/.

There used to be a more productive +/- ATR vowel system but much of that collapsed leaving only the mid vowels to differentiate. Mid-close /e/ for instance cannot co-occur in the same (non-compound) word as /ɛ/ or /ʌ/. The acquisition of the uvular stop and fricative is the result of areal affects of the substrate languages. This also helped the collapse of the +/- ATR harmony system as uvulars tend to erase distinctions and make all nearby sounds -ATR.

There are two tones, High Tone (marked with an acute accent á) and Low Tone (which is unmarked). The combination of a low and a high tone in long vowels results in basic contour tones of Rising Tone and Falling Tone indicated (aá for Rising and áa for Falling tone, for high level tone áá and low level tone aa)

Basic syllable structure is (C(w,j))V(C)(C)

More specifically at onset, any bilabial consonant can form a cluster with /j/ - /mj, pj, fj, wj/ and any velar or uvular consonant can take a /w/, /ŋw, kw, xw, qw, χw/.

For any single consonant in the coda -C, any sound can occur save for /j w/ which, do however form geminates if only intervocalically. Coda /h/ is quite common and is currently messing around with some allotony but I'll get to that in another post that's more suited to that.

Allowable coda-clusters -CC:

l+C clusters: /lm ln lŋ lp lt lts ltʃ lk lf lx/

r+C clusters: /rp rt rts rtɬ rtʃ rk rs rɬ rʃ rx/

FC clusters: /fʃ/

The /fʃ/ cluster is rare and is from a borrowing from a neighboring language which does a lot of trading and a fairly sizeable amount of intermarrying.

Lastly, though it does happen, it is important to note that though the theoretical syllable maximum is indeed CwVCC or CjVCC, these syllables are exceedingly rare though the words /pjɑːrʃ/ "dock; wharf; shipyard" and /kwʌlx/ "phlegm; bile; disrespect" exist, they are no common, typically a syllable will have V, CV, VC, CVC, CCV, CVCC structure instead.

Instead of the complex allophony I came up with in Híí 5.2 as an excuse for having both of /k g/, I now have a simple explanation for the unusual set of stops in the language. The language basically just has labial, alveolar, velar and glottal stops, but it just so happens that the unconditioned (e.g. intervocalic) realisations of the labial and velar stops happen to be voiced, while the alveolar and glottal stops are generally always voiceless.

Apart from the single word kéłłben which was always one of my favourites, I’ve never found k easy to use in Híí, and now I’ve discovered a way to do away with it. kéłłben will have to be sacrificed, but so be it. It’s for the greater good of the language.

Apart from the single word kéłłben which was always one of my favourites, I’ve never found k easy to use in Híí, and now I’ve discovered a way to do away with it. kéłłben will have to be sacrificed, but so be it. It’s for the greater good of the language.

You could keep /k/ as a marginal phoneme found esseintially in only that one word.

Apart from the single word kéłłben which was always one of my favourites, I’ve never found k easy to use in Híí, and now I’ve discovered a way to do away with it. kéłłben will have to be sacrificed, but so be it. It’s for the greater good of the language.

You could keep /k/ as a marginal phoneme found esseintially in only that one word.

/i y e ø ɛ/ i ü é ö è
/ə a/ e a
/u o ʊ ɔ ʌ/ u ó o ò ä
Letter spellings
ni/li/si/ti/gli next to high vowels other than /i/
ny/ly/sy/ty/gly next to central and low vowels other than /a o u/
Used as initial.
the inverted versions are the same but used as syllable or word final. Usually word final.
Next to the vowels mentioned, gn/lh/x/c are used.